1994 Coca-Cola 600

Race details
Race 11 of 31 in the1994 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1994 Coca-Cola 600 program cover, with artwork by NASCAR artistSam Bass.
Date	May 29, 1994 (1994-05-29)
Official name	35th Annual Coca-Cola 600
Location	Concord, North Carolina,Charlotte Motor Speedway
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	1.5 miles (2.41 km)
Distance	400 laps, 600 mi (965.606 km)
Average speed	139.445 miles per hour (224.415 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports
Time	29.762
Most laps led
Driver	Rusty Wallace	Penske Racing South
Laps	187
Winner
No. 24	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network	TBS
Announcers	Ken Squier,Richard Petty
Radio in the United States
Radio	Performance Racing Network

The1994 Coca-Cola 600 was the 11thstock car race of the1994 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season and the 35th iteration of theevent. The race was held on Sunday, May 29, 1994, inConcord, North Carolina, atCharlotte Motor Speedway, a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) permanent quad-oval. The race took the scheduled 400 laps to complete. Gambling with a two-tire stop 20 laps from the end of the race,Hendrick Motorsports driverJeff Gordon would manage to fend off the field for the final 20 laps of the race to take his first victory of the season and his first career win in a points-payingNASCAR Winston Cup Series race.^[1][2][3][4] To fill out the top three,Penske Racing South driverRusty Wallace and owner-driverGeoff Bodine would finish second and third, respectively.

Charlotte Motor Speedway is a motorsports complex located in Concord, North Carolina, United States 13 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. The complex features a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) quad oval track that hosts NASCAR racing including the prestigiousCoca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend and theNEXTEL All-Star Challenge, as well as theUAW-GM Quality 500. The speedway was built in 1959 by Bruton Smith and is considered the home track for NASCAR with many race teams located in the Charlotte area. The track is owned and operated by Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI) with Marcus G. Smith (son ofBruton Smith) as track president.

• (R) denotes rookie driver.

Qualifying was split into two rounds. The first round was held on Wednesday, May 25, at 7:00 PMEST. Each driver would have one lap to set a time. During the first round, the top 25 drivers in the round would be guaranteed a starting spot in the race. If a driver was not able to guarantee a spot in the first round, they had the option to scrub their time from the first round and try and run a faster lap time in a second round qualifying run, held on Thursday, May 26, at 2:30 PMEST. As with the first round, each driver would have one lap to set a time. For this specific race, positions 26-40 would be decided on time,^[5] and depending on who needed it, a select amount of positions were given to cars who had not otherwise qualified but were high enough in owner's points; up to two were given. If needed, a past champion who did not qualify on either time or provisionals could use a champion's provisional, adding one more spot to the field.

Jeff Gordon, driving forHendrick Motorsports, would win the pole, setting a time of 29.762 and an average speed of 181.439 miles per hour (291.998 km/h) in the first round.^[6][7]

Four drivers would fail to qualify.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Ernie Irvan 1,799 2 Dale Earnhardt 1,737 (-62) 3 3 Rusty Wallace 1,470 (-329) 4 Ken Schrader 1,440 (–359) 2 5 Mark Martin 1,436 (–363) 1 6 Morgan Shepherd 1,374 (–425) 1 7 Ricky Rudd 1,370 (–429) 1 8 Lake Speed 1,346 (–453) 1 9 Ted Musgrave 1,301 (–498) 2 10 Michael Waltrip 1,297 (–502) Official driver's standings Note: Only the first 10 positions are included for the driver standings.

• 1994 in sports in North Carolina
• 1994 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
• NASCAR races at Charlotte Motor Speedway
• May 1994 sports events in the United States

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